A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 5–9.
For years a Pathfinder team has surveyed Qadira’s Zho Mountains in an attempt to reconcile its twisting valleys with a series of old maps recovered years ago on the Silken Way. When the team disappears soon after reporting a strange illusory effect in a mountain pass, the Society sends the PCs—funded by an unusual benefactor—to uncover whatever is hidden in those peaks and rescue the agents.
Content in “Valley of Veiled Flame” also contributes directly to the ongoing storylines of the Liberty’s Edge and Silver Crusade factions.
Written by Nathan King.
This scenario is designed for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, but can easily be adapted for use with any world. This scenario is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
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I liked the story. It went for an unusual location and brought in the oread and efriti races quite well. I would definitely play this with my oread living monolith.
In the end, I thought the fights fell a bit flat for the party.
It was fire, fire, and more fire. Which, once they figured out how to beat the first time, they didn't have any more trouble with the rest.
Also, they were hitting me for 16-30 dmg per round, while the most I could do to them was 1d6+2. Not that I like clobbering characters, but it seemed pretty lopsided.
Hope others had a better experience, because I thought it was an interesting new story.
Though I walk through the Valley of Veiled Flame, I shall fear no evil...
I played this as the Taldan Sarenite paladin in the same party as Damanta's bloodrager and Monkhound's living monolith.
We didn't have the kind of motivational problems that others had; we also had a Sarenite cleric in the group, and the bloodrager was a CG pirate type. Monkhound and I have also played Rats of Round Mountain together, so overthrowing tyrants of small isolated South-American states is something that we just do.
It helped that our GM was able to with just a few key comments sketch things, indicating that the BBEG was in fact BB and E. "Your fellow Pathfinders are guests" quickly translates to "they're prisoners". "The BBEG is warlike" translates to "time for regime change".
So then why should we set up an actual insurrection, instead of saying "we're the PCs, we'll take it from here"?
Spoiler:
For us, easy enough; the oreads told us about the barracks, that there were about 200 soldiers there. So to us the insurrection was mostly about splitting the enemy's forces so we could deal with the BBEG without distractions.
Plot (4)The plot is straightforward enough for a single slot game. It's a bit simple even, but that's fine; this is a small town after all. If you're playing heroic-minded PCs, it's enough reason to do what you have to do.
Since we didn't play it that way, I don't know how well the "low road" works, where you don't actually help the town. I do think it's good that the scenario explicitly anticipates the possibility.
RP (3) There were okay RP opportunities here, although not the best I've ever seen. Rousing the downtrodden masses was entertaining though.
Combat (4):
After stuff like Silver Mount Collection, this adventure felt like the combat difficulty returned to normal levels again. (Normal levels of difficulty felt easy to us, but then we had a pretty good party, working together well.) The combats are made more interesting because there's quite a few opponents that are pretty dangerous, but you don't want to kill them because they're basically still villagers, just fighting for the wrong side. As I understand, it could've been harder if we hadn't done the right stuff in the village, but we did.
There's opportunities to pick up a lot of anti-fire-damage tech in this adventure, far more than we really needed. I think the author may have been over-cautious a bit.
Because the BBEG in this adventure is Large herself, the adventure is decidedly more friendly to cavaliers than I'm used to, which is good.
Miscellaneous (4):
I like the location of this adventure. It's not terrifically original, but it's a good concept and it works. I didn't really notice all the new classes at work, though I did recognize the brawlers.
The chance to set up an actual revolution in a way that works in a normal slot, I think that's good scenario writing. And it's even a revolution that a paladin can get behind!
All in all this adventure was a satisfying afternoon for me. We were heroes, we kicked fiery butt.
I played the adventure as the Living Monolith in the party with Damanta (previous review) and it was indeed a blast (no pun intended; There was not much left of the BBEG).
Background 4: Nice story, although slightly predictible. I'm curious as to any repercussions this adventure might have.
Combat 5: The combats were quite interesting, but would be more challenging for a party with fewer two-handers.
Roleplaying 5: Good opportunities for roleplaying, especially for LE and SC faction members. Being a murder hobo will not pay off. This ain't no dungeon.
Skills 5: Plenty of opportunities to use the skills you shine in!
General 5: This is an excellent adventure all-round. Absolutely worth playing! As mentioned by previous reviewers, this adventure might take long, depending on the amount of roleplaying.
We played it today with a party of 6, most of whom already walked through 6-01, 6-02, and 6-03 together so this was a nice way of getting the group back together.
party:
Human Living Monolith 7, Human Paladin 8, Human Bloodrager 8, Tiefling Wizard 6, Human Cleric 7, Halfling Cavalier 7 with worg companion. A fairly melee heavy party (3 twohanders, 1 charger) but we also have a lot of knowledges all around and for social encounters both the bloodrager and paladin support a high diplomacy. The cleric and paladin both are Silver Crusade faction.
It was almost as if the adventure was written with this kind of group in mind.
Spoiler:
The GM played the downtrodden oreads really well, and very quickly the Silver Crusade members and my freedom loving bloodrager determined to get rid of the "bad" ruler. Combats were mostly very short but that was due to the party composition.
We spend about 5 hours on it, as we roleplayed our way through a lot of encounters but kept the combats fairly short, I can see parties with less damage output take a bit longer on combats.
I ran into a similar problem playing this Scenario as Ninjack.
Spoiler:
I went in with an Exchange person and past experience of trying to set up trade deals and establishing allies for the soceity. It turns out that little in the scenario really pushes you into overthrowing the Efreeti as most of her subjects and the one major NPC are not all the unhappy. Second class sure, but hardly worse off than slaves in Cheliax or humanoid cattle in Geb.
The worse thing she seems to do is take children away from the Oreads (bad) and give them status, an education and greater rights (YE GODS the HORROR) its again to blaming Daddy Warbucks for taking Annie away from the orphanage. It seems that the writer wrote this from a modern perspective rather than one more appropriate to the time and setting, and needed to really emphasize how bad off the oread were, and how she was looking to conquer the area, despite all the Oread descriptions saying well, its not great but its not all bad...
"For years a Pathfinder team has surveyed Qadira’s Zho Mountains in an attempt to reconcile its twisting valleys with a series of old maps recovered years ago on the Silken Way."
Good. Now you just need to populate the encounters with Western Katapeshi Gnolls, feature Irskin Jaiorass and perhaps have a few gobbos along for old time's sake.
Sounds like it has definite connections to Murder on the Silken Caravan and possible connections to Citadel of Flame(?).
Without spoiling anything, I can say that this has connections to Murder on the Silken Caravan but not Citadel of Flame , however, the latter and this scenario are in fairly close proximity to each other.
"NO!!! I'm never going back to Qadira! Having been born and raised there, I probably know the Zho Mountains better than any Pathfinder, but I don't care. The humans in that country to enslave genies and genie-kin like me, and it's just awful. That's why I left!"
"NO!!! I'm never going back to Qadira! Having been born and raised there, I probably know the Zho Mountains better than any Pathfinder, but I don't care. The humans in that country to enslave genies and genie-kin like me, and it's just awful. That's why I left!"
You're more than welcome to come work for me at my home in Cheliax. You can work in the stables with my Shoanti slaves. The pay is...well, nonexistent, but offers a friendly atmosphere.
Someone recently pointed out that the throne room is missing a map tag for the traps. I have submitted a revision, but in the meantime know that the traps are 10-by-10-foot squares that fan out to either side of the throne (two to a side).
"NO!!! I'm never going back to Qadira! Having been born and raised there, I probably know the Zho Mountains better than any Pathfinder, but I don't care. The humans in that country to enslave genies and genie-kin like me, and it's just awful. That's why I left!"
You're more than welcome to come work for me at my home in Cheliax. You can work in the stables with my Shoanti slaves. The pay is...well, nonexistent, but offers a friendly atmosphere.
-Vincent, Human Hellknight
"I'm not slave or servant to anyone! I'm a free sylph!"
Ran this last week at FLGS. Had a ball pulling out some of my minis that I have rarely used. Everyone had blast with the combats. I didn't have a problem getting buy in from the players to do well you know what they had to do.
They weren't even upset they only got 1 prestige.
And I am going to run it at FLGS # 2 in a week or so.... for a different crowd. I am actually excited to run this a second time.
#1 the Chronicle made me laugh Tiers 1-2 and 8-9 *chuckle*
#2
Spoiler:
The Sidebars for E1 and E2 Mention 5 Tasks
I have found 4 of the tasks ... but cannot find the 5th or even reference to a possible Fifth in the Text Leading to the assult
Task 1 - Convince Eurdan Stonemantle to fully Commit
Task 2 - get the Drunken Oreads Support
Task 3 - Successfully reducing the ifrits’ supply of weapons by any 1 of the ways in the forge
Task 4 - prevent the shop’s complete destruction and defeat the ifrits
whats the 5th one Mentioned in the sidebar or is this simply an editing error
We had an Inquisitor with the right faction, but my Rogue had Diplomacy and we both spoke infernal after a few rounds of "translation" and me improving / changing the inquisitor's story ans ad libbing from Les Miserabes we had the table rolling on the floor.
#1 the Chronicle made me laugh Tiers 1-2 and 8-9 *chuckle*
#2 ** spoiler omitted **
Valley of Veilded Flame:
It is not obvious, but the scenario gives them plus one to the tasks completed on the four person adjustment.So if your group completes all four tasks then you get four plus one leading to and adjustment of five
